


Wolf, Moon

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Flight of the Conchords (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:38:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Story by Mia Ugly</p><p>Jemaine Clement was recently married in Los Angeles, California.  The night of his bachelor party, he has something to say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wolf, Moon

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by Dj Fast9's to whom I am forever thankful. All other mistakes are mine. My first attempt at rps.
> 
> Written for ediblestars

 

 

Okay.

So Jemaine's the funny one, and that's the way it's always been, and it's always been fine. He almost enjoyed playing the role - being rude and mock-arrogant, being the geek with the sideburns and glasses, the movie roles everyone thought were a little too true to life. While Bret, on the other hand, he's the romantic, that's what they say anyway, the sweet sensitive guy, a bit shy around women but still the favourite, and frankly Jemaine thinks it's down to those huge puppy eyes, always so nervous and concerned, but you never can tell, there must be other reasons. There are enough fansites for the poor beggar at any rate, and didn't some Yank celebrity just tell the media Bret was her official "crush" or some bloody thing? But that's just Bret, it's just typical for him and it always has been, even back at uni when his face was hairless and he looked like a buttoned up little nine-year-old, a choir boy, he was still the nice guy, the romantic, and Jemaine was the sidekick, the funny man, insensitive, who had no luck with women and didn't care, and it was fine. It was fine. It was - what was it?

He's had a bit to drink. It's affecting his train of thought.

Oh yes, the point is - the point is that Jemaine's not just funny, he can be more than that, and he wants to make it clear. Too many people have been thumping him on the back tonight, buying him suggestively-named shots, pounding his back and saying "Never thought you had it in you." Or "didn't think you'd be the first one getting married," or "are you having us on?" or "you sure she really said yes?" So on and so on and so on, and why is it so surprising that he might feel something, or want to stay with someone, or do the decent thing - why is it so hard to believe that he might have things to say? It's been bothering him all night, and he doesn't quite know why. Maybe it's down to the vast amount of alcohol he's consumed; drunkenness always takes his mind wandering through twisted, sunless paths. Maybe it's because this is his bachelor party, and he's miles away from home, and starting to get all funny in the head, all panicky at the thought of the rest of his life as a clear, well-paved highway. Maybe it's just to prove a bloody point, but this morning Jemaine woke up with something inside of him that sparked and rooted and grew, and now he's got something in his mouth and in his chest that he wants to say and to say and to say and it's this:

Bret is wearing a stupid shirt that they bought together, for two dollars in New York somewhere, and it has a wolf on it. A wolf howling at a wide grey moon, and Jemaine knows how that wolf feels, knows exactly how it feels, neck craned back like it's breaking, head thrown back like it's in pain, and so so far away from what it wants -

Not in those words exactly, of course. Too melodramatic, too angsty, too bloody teenage. It'll come to him, though, something perfect that explains it, and he'll say it, he'll say it tonight, and everyone will know that he can ache and burn for something, he can, he bloody can. If this was a song he would find the words instantly, he would know the rhythm and meter, could lay it all down, or improvise it, either way it would be golden. But this isn't a song. And Jemaine cannot wait any longer, he has to do it tonight, or he doesn't know if he ever will. He has something to say.

"What's going on?" Bret looks at him from the other side of the loudly-patterned couch, eyebrows furrowed like he's hurt, but it's just what he looks like when he's concerned, once you get to know him you start to figure it out. When they first met, Jemaine thought Bret was perpetually offended, kind of a wuss actually, until he realized what that expression actually meant (though he still thought Bret was kind of a wuss. I mean, really. His wrists were like a child's.)

"What?"

"Well, you've been staring into space for the last ten minutes, looking all unhappy, and - frankly - it's bringing me down. It's really - it's just rude."

Jemaine rolls his eyes, which makes him dizzy, but the corner of his mouth curls.

"We invite all these people back to the hotel room, and you stop speaking. Are you just really really really pissed?"

Bret stops saying his t's when he's drunk. (Haven' said a word in ages. Are you jus' really piss'?) Jemaine blinks once, considering. "Might be."

"Nah, that's almost a coherent sentence. You're far too sober." Bret drains his wine glass with a toss of his head.. "I'm getting you another drink. You're about to get married and - and I'm getting you another drink."

The couch cushions shift as Bret stands, making Jemaine lean slightly to the right. His head is starting to hurt, and his neck aches, but he can't be bothered to shift himself. He's too bloody tired, and the hum from the light fixtures is rattling around inside his skull like angry dice. Aside from the humming, it's a pretty nice hotel room, much nicer than the bar they got chucked out of - the tub is the size of a pool almost, and there are four beds four beds can you believe it? Jemaine's not quite sure the party should continue that much longer though - he doesn't need any more liquor, the room is spinning enough as it is, and he's gone warm all over, flushed and shivery the way he does when he drinks too much. Any more and he'll be sick. Any more and he might forget that he's getting married, he's found someone he loves and he's getting married, which is important and good and there's something he has to say about it, something -

He's getting married. He is, and he's so glad about it. He is.

The evening seems to be winding down at any rate. Most of the stragglers have given up on it, really, crawled back to their own hotel rooms - and that group of chaps in the corner are more Bret's friends than his, couldn't they call the night to a close? Then he could lay down, right there, right flat on the sofa, and close his eyes and assemble the words in his head, lay them out so they made sense, piece them together like a coloured-glass mosaic. 

Beautiful and sharp.

Taika catches his eye from across the room, and raises his drink in a silent smirk of a toast. He'll be the next one married, no doubt, can't pry him away from Loren without a crow-bar. She'd be here, along with Bret's girl, if they weren't both at the bachelorette party. Jemaine heard that male strippers were on order, so it would probably be a banner event. He himself had expected a half-naked woman to arrive at some point in the evening, but thankfully Bret was far too uncomfortable to arrange for one (told him as much earlier, said he had to have a drink before he could even call the agency, and then hung up when they asked him what colour hair he wanted. "Like I was picking out a lobster," he said and shuddered, "Just not right.") 

"It's alright for the lobsters though, is it?" 

"What about lobsters?" Bret sits back down on the couch, waving a can of lager in Jemaine's general direction.

"Oh. Nothing." Jemaine cracks the can open, and tips it down his throat, grimacing. He's about done for the night, he really is. He should be - except Bret gives him a little smile with the corner of his mouth, and Jemaine feels his throat tighten and his heart jerk like it's terrified, and he lifts the can again.

"Everyone's buggering off," Bret laughs, looking around the room. "Who are those guys in the corner?"

"I thought they were your mates." There is a wolf and a moon on Bret's t-shirt, and pine trees in the background, the type of forest you'd get lost in.

"Mine? Wow. Maybe. Maybe." (Bret starts repeating himself when he's been drinking.)

"I'm off, then." Taika appears out of nowhere, swimming slightly in Jemaine's vision.

"There's room to stay, if you want." Jemaine is unduly impressed that he manages a response. "Certainly enough beds. Four, did you see?"

"Nah, I'll call a cab. Got a room across town with my lady. But we'll see you for dinner tomorrow, yeah?" He looks at Bret, who's grinning sloppily, and his eyebrows knit together. "You want a lift anywhere, mate?"

Jemaine looks from Bret to Taika and back again, because it's an odd question - obviously Bret's staying, they always stay together, the parties always end with them - just them - leaning on eachother drunkly, stumbling out into the night, stumbling home. It always struck Jemaine as completely natural, but then - no one ever commented on it.

"Nah, I'm good. Cheers." Bret burrows down into the couch, "If you want to clear those fellows out, though, you're welcome to."

"Who even are they?"

"My really really good friends," Bret says earnestly. Jemaine snorts.

"Alright. Congrats again, Jemaine. Guess I've said it enough. You two behave." Taika walks away, but not without that last bit, and even in the foggy and drunken depths of his brain Jemaine wonders if something was meant by it, and it suddenly occurs to him that maybe they aren't the last two because everyone else leaves. Maybe they're the last two because everyone leaves them (and what was it Taika said that one time, when they were all together after a particularly wild night, all headache-grey the next morning, eating greasy eggs and burnt coffee," You two are both idiots, you know," and refusing to explain himself, just turning back to his breakfast while the conversation continued on around them, like rapids taking you further and further from a rough patch of water, a place where you could have capsized and drowned.)

Jemaine's getting married. 

Somehow Taika rounds up the anonymous guests in the corner, and one by one the other few partygoers gather their things, mumble drunken congrats, and slip away. And then the hotel room door clicks shut, and it's just the two of them, sitting on the couch, side by side, Flight of the sodding Conchords. Jemaine studies the can in his hand - where did his beer go? He just got it, he can't have drank it already, it must have - spilled - or -

"You want another?" Bret notices his problem.

"Oh. Uh - no. I don't think so."

"Sure you do." His friend rises again, and goes to rummage through the minibar. Jemaine rubs the bridge of his nose. There's something not right about these new glasses, something he feels between his temples all the way down his neck

The couch shifts again as Bret collapses into it, proudly carrying two more cans of ale. He opens Jemaine's for him, before handing it over and leaning back against the cushions, sighing deeply.

"I'm very drunk," he murmurs, and then laughs. He's always laughing at nothing, or something only he can see, something only he thinks is funny, like a child delighted when a toy comes to life.

"So am I." Jemaine drinks more, anyway. He winces. "I'm getting a headache."

"Take your glasses off," Bret says, looking up at the ceiling. "That's what's doing it."

"Not the alcohol."

"Of course not."

Jemaine takes off his glasses, lays them on the arm of the couch. He places the cool beer can against his forehead, and hums contentedly as the pain starts to ebb.

"So. Married, eh?" Bret chuckles somewhere beside him.

"Yes."

"Never thought you'd go before me. Though I expect you might be trying to prove a point."

"Really."

"Yeah, just showing everyone you're more mature, more committed. More luck with women."

"You're absolutely right. This, and everything else, is always about you. Everything I do."

"Isn't that a song?"

"What?"

"What you just - that's a song. Isn't it? It is."

Jemaine closes his eyes, hears Bret rustling around nearby. Maybe it is a song. 

"Do you remember how drunk we got in that hotel in Montreal, the night we wrote the awful song about the doctor - what was it called? It was that useless eighties -"

Jemaine remembers. "Heartsick."

"Oh yeah. And we thought it was so funny that night, it was our bloody opus, and then the next morning -" Bret laughs again, so amused by himself, and Jemaine can't help but laugh too.

"It was like waking up with someone you thought was really brilliant and attractive the night before, and then you see them, and you -"

"That's exactly what it was. It was our regrettable one-night-stand song. Gorgeous when we took it home from the bar." 

Eyes still closed, Jemaine lifts his beer to his mouth, nearly draining the can. He's got to slow down. This has to be his last one. Someone starts singing softly, and it takes Jemaine a moment to realize that it's him.

"Don't touch me, don't stand so close- my love is contagious, and you don't want to catch this," he snatches the memory of melody out the air, where it hangs like a ghost.

"Bloody hell. And it had that really nasty chord progression, do you remember?"

"Yes." He doesn't really, but he can imagine it. C to the F to the -

"Something and a something, so - I'll cover my mouth when I cough..." In the darkness behind Jemaine's eyelids, Bret continues the song. 

"My love is contagious," Jemaine finishes quietly, "There ain't no vaccination for this - love."

There is a silence. He drains the last of his beer.

"It's quite brilliant actually. Rhyming 'cough' and 'love' - that's poetry, is that." He opens his eyes just in time to see Bret lean to kiss him.

(The first time it happened was in college, they had just met just a couple of times, but walked home together from the pub, and Bret's mouth had looked so small and soft, like a woman's really, that was his only excuse, and Bret's hands were so delicate, Jemaine used to tease him about it, like doll hands, how on earth could he play the guitar with them, and they were both so drunk, so drunk they could barely stand, and in the doorway of Jemaine's apartment they were laughing and laughing about something, leaning into eachother, laughing, and suddenly kissing, still drunk and sick and smiling against eachother's teeth, gasping around eachother's tongues, and hands unthinking and everywhere. Later, of course, there was a lot of awkwardness - they weren't queer, god no, they both liked girls, had always like girls, and that wasn't going to change. They had had a lot to drink, which basically excused anything that had gone on, it was just fooling around, it wasn't anything serious, just hormones and alcohol and tiredness and - whatever. Not a big deal, right? Right. Never a big deal.)

Jemaine breaks the kiss reluctantly, with a strength that surprises him, and a gasp of breath that seems very warm against his lips.

"What -" Bret's eyes are still half-closed, his mouth slightly open. He leans in again, and Jemaine has to put out his hands to ward him off.

"I'm - getting married," he manages, hands trembling where they lay (awkward on Bret's small and elegant shoulders).

Bret blinks a couple of times, and gets that concerned puppy look, the wrinkle in the middle of his forehead that's really - just - too fetching. They never talk about this. They've never said anything about it, just let it happen, as if saying anything would make it horrible and sordid and real. Jemaine regrets saying anything now, regrets it just as quickly as the phrase leaves his mouth, because more than making it real, more than giving voice to a long and complicated relationship, more than anything else, he's stopped it from happening, he's stopped it, and who knows if it will ever happen again -

"You aren't married yet," Bret says quietly, chewing on his bottom lip. Jemaine meets his gaze, and Bret gives him a nervous little half-shrug. 

"I've had - quite a lot to drink," Jemaine mumbles, and he shouldn't have said this either, but he did, and Bret manages a small, grateful smile before they're kissing again, sloppy with alcohol but that's what makes it fine, the rough meeting and parting of their mouths, the way Bret's stubble scrapes almost painfully against Jemaine's jaw and neck, the teeth of the other man mashing into his own, and it's been too long since they were together like this, fingers tangled in eachother's clothing, it's been too too long. He licks the roof of Bret's mouth, loving the ridges, the heat there, he draws his lips over Bret's teeth, bites and bites his upper lip, a cupid's bow, perfectly shaped and raspy with stubble, and there's a tiny scar at the corner of Bret's mouth and oh god Jemaine's getting married now, he can't just mess about, he's getting married -

"The - last time," he gasps against Bret's bottom lip, and Bret nods, allowing himself to be pushed back against the couch cushions, while Jemaine slides off the couch and gets to his knees. He thinks he may have said it before, "the last time," maybe he said it when they both started seriously dating, or the time after they had that huge row, or maybe he just thought it over and over again, but he doesn't know what scares him worse: that his words don't mean anything, that this might not be the last time, or that it actually might be. His hands are shaking as he undoes the button of Bret's trousers, shaking as he pulls down the zip, but there is a wolf and a moon on Bret's t-shirt, and Jemaine's mouth waters at the hot skin beneath his hand, waters as Bret's trousers and pants are slid over slim hips, waters until he is free to bend and grasp and wrap his lips around the head of his friend's (gorgeous, gorgeous) cock. 

The room is spinning, and Bret cries out at the first contact (they never say anything, they aren't allowed to say anything, but of course they're allowed to make noise.) Jemaine loves the sound, and endeavours to make Bret cry out again and again, moan damn it, whimper damn you, taking him deep deep into his throat, swallowing and swallowing around him, not gagging, never gagging because he loves this, loves the heat and length and taste, could just stay on his knees and have his mouth fucked and fucked all night, it makes him harder than anything, makes him shake and beg and tremble. Bret gasps and gasps above him, and Jemaine trails his hands up his friend's thighs, squeezing and scratching until Bret's hips start to make little thrusting motions, in in in, and the couch is creaking and shuddering underneath the movements, but still Jemaine swallows and swallows and sucks until Bret's thrusts are more erratic and violent and his cries stop altogether (he's always silent at this part, just hissing and shaking) and Jemaine takes as much as he can, sinks deeper onto Bret's cock as he comes down his throat, swallowing and swallowing and loving the sweet little injured sounds Bret makes, Bret always makes, as he trembles and shakes through the aftershocks. Jemaine sucks gently, trails his tongue up Bret's length and around the head, before releasing him wet and sticky into the cool air. If he so much as rubs up against the couch he'll come, and he stops himself with the last thread of his sanity. And dignity. Though there isn't much of that left.

He's getting married.

"Brilliant," Bret gasps after a moment. "Just - brilliant."

Jemaine presses his forehead against his friend's stomach, soaking up contact, desperate for it. He wants very desperately to kiss the black hairs on Bret's abdomen, wants to feel them against his tongue, but he can't he can't.

"Oi," Bret murmurs above him, and Jemaine's mouth waters, still desperate, opens -

"Oi," Bret says again a little louder, and Jemaine forces himself to lift his head, to relinquish his hold on the man beneath him. Bret looks dishevelled in the best way - tousled and tired and swimming in sex, and he grins as Jemaine stares at him, watches him with his mouth gaping, jaw dropped.

"Come here, you." Bret reaches for him, pushing Jemaine down to the floor. He rises quickly, tucking himself back into his pants, before he drops to the floor himself, pinning Jemaine beneath his slight weight. Jemaine instantly loses himself in the contact, kissing anything within reach, rubbing himself shamelessly against his friend, and his hands tangle in the cotton of Bret's t-shirt, wolf and moon blurring and merging and shimmering in front of him. He doesn't say anything, they aren't allowed to, doesn't ask for Bret's body or mouth, but when trembling hands move to his zipper, Jemaine almost cries out, almost thanks him, almost says - something -

Bret's touch is ruthless and unpractised; he doesn't start off slow or build, he just gropes at Jemaine like he's starving, like he's playing an instrument or digging through soil. And Jemaine loves this loves this, loves not having to think or be clever, just reacting and feeling and moaning while he moves through Bret's fingers (in in in) the taste of come still hot in his mouth, the sting of salt sharp in the corners of his eyes. And as Jemaine is jerked roughly in a small smooth fist, as he stares up into Bret's wide eyes, their faces get closer and closer together, their mouths closer and closer until they're almost breathing into eachother, until their lips are almost touching, and his hips tremble with the exquisite pressure, and Bret looks down, watches his hand on Jemaine's cock, and gasps "Oh Jemaine - I want - I want to fuck you - " and they're not allowed to talk, they're not allowed to say eachother's names and they've never done anything like that - they've never - and Bret's never said anything like - and the thought is so remarkable that Jemaine's spine arches and he comes in Bret's hand, pressing his face against the neck of the man on top of him as he shakes and shakes, so good it's nearly painful, and he wants it to end because it's unbearable but he wants it to last forever because of everything else, Bret's skin and scruff and tiny hands, the way he talks, the way he laughs, the way he sings, the way he smells, like sweat and alcohol, like wolves and moons and forests oh god -

("You two are both idiots," Taika says under his breath, and Jemaine looks away from Bret to frown at his friend. "Why are we idiots?" "Don't you -" Taika rubs his hands across his face. "What you want is - you know, I can't have this conversation right now. You just are, okay? You just are.")

They lie together for a long time, drunk and crumpled on the floor, tangled together like dirty laundry, and Jemaine wants to put words to the ache ache ache that's centred in his chest, cold since he came against Bret's fingers, cold since Bret said his name; he wants to put words to this feeling that he didn't know existed, something missing and unexpected and hesitant all at once, something to do with Bret's ratty old t-shirt, and the stubble on his jaw, and the way the moon pulls on the sea, pulls its strings as if it were a puppet.

Or an instrument, maybe. A guitar.

"Bret," Jemaine says, after a moment. Bret's lying half beside him, half on top of him, and he shifts himself slightly to meet Jemaine's gaze. Jemaine instantly regrets it, his body feels cold in the absence. But he has something to say. He has something to say because he's getting married, and he said this would be the last time, and he meant it he meant it.

"Bret, there -" he stops, say it say it. "There - is -"

Bret looks at him then, eyebrows creased like unhappy calligraphy, until his mouth curls up at the corner.

"Yeah? What?"

Maybe something goes through Jemaine's mind right now, but looking back he won't remember, all he'll remember is the tight violent pause, the tugging that stops his heart in his chest, freezes his lungs, makes the world slow down for a few seconds while his mind remains blank. If he were on stage, he would know what to play, know which chords would fit in his hand and in the song just from the way Bret breathed or stared or smirked and shrugged his shoulders, he would know. But because he is not on stage, because he is lying on the ruddy carpet of an LA hotel room floor -

"Never - it's nothing."

"Alright," Bret rolls over onto his back, looks up at the ceiling. Jemaine looks at him. "I'm going to fall asleep here if I don't move soon." 

"Yeah."

"I'm going to be so hung over tomorrow. I never bounce back the way you do."

Jemaine snorts softly, watching Bret's dark eyes as they flicker across the ceiling, watching something, chasing birds. Does he really 'bounce back?' Jemaine isn't certain.

"Well," Bret stretches, slowly sits up, "I'm for a shower. Probably smell revolting. You alright if I take the big bed?" (Like he needs it, he's pint sized.)

"Yeah," Jemaine says again, his heart pounding slow and cold against his ribs, like a rattling block of ice. He watches his friend rise gracefully, turn to stride across the thick hotel carpet before throwing a grin over his left shoulder. And as Bret opens the bathroom door, the words fill Jemaine's mouth like brandy, like wine.

"Bret -" he tries again. 

Bret turns back to look at him. "What?"

"I -" Again the violent pause, the hot hard flicker of longing, of near-crippling desire. "There is - there is a wolf. On your shirt."

Bret waits a moment before smiling lazily. "Yeah, well done. See you in a bit."

He closes the door behind him, and Jemaine's heart shudders and is still. He digs his fingers into the carpet ("you are both idiots, you know") squeezes his eyes shut ("brilliant, just - brilliant") and the sound of the water starting in the bathroom sounds like something wild and in pain, sounds like an animal. Howling.

Okay.

 


End file.
